Listen for the temper!
Riley pushing walker toy from Lindsey Souza on Vimeo.
Let me in to my brother!!! from Lindsey Souza on Vimeo.
Pushing the cozy coupe from Lindsey Souza on Vimeo.
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Travis has had this little pop up train tent since he was two. It has been the best toy and it has seen hours upon hours of play. He loves to pop it up and camp out in it on weekends, or read a book in it. Here, he is in it, coloring a project for school. That certainly intrigued someone!
At first, he was kind of not very interested
then he spotted the door
and then the fun began! He did try to pull up on it once, but it just collapsed underneath him, so he settled on crawling in and out, to see Travis.
Every night, Travis goes to take a shower. And every night, when the water starts running in the tub, Riley disappears down the hallway, looking for not only Travis, but the water. He's not very stealthy about it....he squeals with excitement the entire way down the hall. And then he does this:
Travis continually amazes me. He amazes me with his big heart, that is so full of love and compassion for others. This week for school, he had a project to turn in. It went along with a story they read in class. He had to make a memory box. And in that box, he had to put items that represent each of the following: a happy memory, a funny memory, a sad memory, a memory from long ago an a memory more precious than gold. You ready to hear his choices? All unprompted, totally his own, although Jay and I DID weigh in on the funny memory (he was having trouble deciding between 2 different things).
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Once upon a time, there were two families who went on a trip to the country together.
there were puppies
and doggies to play with
and peek at
BB guns for little boys (and girls) to shoot
Even when it rained
Even the mom's got in on the action!
and the big guys had their fun too
Fish to catch
4 wheelers to ride
Campfires to build
and roast hot dogs and marshmallows on
Trick or Treating for candy
Wet Fall Leaves to sit in
Friends to be excited about
and try to get to
and to cry about when gone
pretty flowers to look at
and the best part, friends to play with
Riley, you know, the baby that was in physical therapy before going to Duke in September?? Remember him? :o) Well... he no longer needs physical therapy. Why? Well check these out:
First of all, not only can he cruise along our furniture...the kitchen cabinets that now have locks on them...our dressers (just by hooking his fingers around the small lip that is there)...our baby gates...the fence at baseball, etc, he can also walk behind his new walk behind toy that he got for his birthday. We really thought it would be a while before he was capable of that, but he just keeps on surprising us!
He LOVES to walk along behind that thing. I took him outside with it and he wasn't as impressed ( I think it was soo much harder to push). But inside, he squeals and giggles and is just so proud of himself walking along.
Friday night...I decided that I had waited long enough to see Riley in the cute two-piece pajamas I bought for him before his surgery. Whats so special about two piece? Well...Riley really can't wear two-piece anything. His pajamas are all sleepers still, even though they make cute two piece pajamas for his age/size. When he was in the hospital, they were always snap up sleepers because he had tubes and wires to run through the space between the snaps. When he got out, I promptly switched to the zip up kind (Children's Place are my favorite), just for the change, although he does still have some snap up one's. All his outfits are onesie shirt style, although a few of his cold weather outfits are non onesie shirts, because he will wear a onesie underneath them for layering warmth. Why the one-piece necessity? Because ostomy bags stick on the skin like a big bandaid. A big...itchy bandaid, that little fingers just LOOOOVE to pry and pick at. So by keeping it covered, it makes it less accessible, although he CAN pull it off through his clothes 
He also enjoyed playing with his bouncy ball that night, and chased it all around our kitchen, our den, and up and down our hallway!
And he decided that the sippy cup is not the enemy he once thought it was. Backstory: Riley would take juice from a sippy with his afternoon snack prior to his surgery in September. He had no contact with sippy cups while in there, but when he came home, he abhorred the sippy cup (and baths). Now, he has come back around to using a sippy (and taking a bath...yay), and as of tonight, has gone two days with no bottles, and only sippy cups and has been taking in a great volume. I found that making the milk slightly chocolatey helped greatly. Considering his old formula was vanilla flavored, I think that makes sense. And I don't care if he ever drinks plain milk, as long as he drinks what he needs NOW. Malnutrition and dehydration are MUCH worse things then only liking chocolate milk in my opinion!
And at one, he's already showing he's ALL boy. Saturday, he plopped right down in the dirt, after he had been cruising along the fence, to play in the dirt:
Travis has been in full blown cub scout mode. The past two weekends, he and Jay have been gone on camping trips with his cub scout troop.
Last weekend...it was Camp McNeill:
It was kind of chilly. It was star wars themed and he got to make a light saber out of swim noodles and PVC pipe and then all the little boys bashed each other with them all weekend.
But he had fun. There was lots to do. There was a fort:
BB guns to shoot
Little boy mischief:
Archery
And a big pirate ship to play in
This weekend, was at Camp Kirkwood, which is fairly close to our home, which worked out well because he also had a ball game Saturday morning:
He got his FIRST base hit in a game this season! (click on the picture to watch the video)
Then it was back to camp. They called for rain, and Jay doesn't like sleeping in a wet tent, so they pre-planned and put a tarp over it, just in case.
Climbing a tree
There was lots of fun stuff to do at Camp Kirkwood also, and he has had such a great time!
So...I haven't disappeared. And yes, I'm still planning to blog. I've just been in a funk. Between all that happened with Riley at Duke, preparing for his first birthday party, working on a project that you will see below and being haunted by "anniversaries" of events from a year ago...I just really haven't been in the mood to blog.
Plus...my state of mind wasn't encouraging to me to sort through a years worth of pictures to do what is posted below for a while. And I wanted to put pictures from Riley's birthday in that project, so...I guess I just haven't posted anything.
What you will find below is a video of Riley's entire first year. Not every picture I have taken (I have taken over 10, 000 since he has been born), but a lot. A lot of them you will remember from past blog posts as I tend to post my favorites on here. Some have never been posted and there are a few videos thrown in also. It's long. I made it for family mainly, but it's easy enough to post and share here IF you have a little bit of time to spend watching it. It has music and sound, so beware of that if your looking from work ;o).
As for how Riley is doing...he's doing well, although he IS running a fever at the moment for some unknown reason. The pediatrician found a VERY slightly red throat (strep test was negative) but he has NO other symptoms other than a VERY slightly elevated white count. Hoping that this is just a normal childhood virus and not something brewing in his belly. But of course , as is the story of his life...all we can do is watch and wait. He is still having issues digesting certain things, but has successfully made the transition from the highly specialized and elemental formula he was on to plain old whole milk. He is a crawling pro now and is a daring cruiser. If he can wrap his fingers around it in the slightest little way, he will use it to cruise along. He gives me a heart attack doing this no less than once a day. He is doing well enough that I returned to work full time this week. And who can believe that he's a year old?? We had a great time celebrating his birthday, both privately on the actual day itself and at his party later on. It was hectic, but his whole life has been hectic, so it suited the occasion I think!!
Enjoy the video!
Riley's first year from Lindsey Souza on Vimeo.
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